Speculators and Commodity Prices — Redux
23.05.12
Washington, 24 February 2012
CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton: On March 16, 2011, I spoke to an industry group concerning the impact of speculative activity on commodity prices. Eleven months later, I’m still talking about it, and saying almost precisely the same thing. Speculators are necessary liquidity providers to our markets, and while they perhaps are not driving prices to uneconomic levels, they certainly have an effect on prices—above and beyond where they might otherwise go—and American consumers and taxpayers are shouldering that burden.
President Obama spoke about rising gas prices yesterday. You can’t turn on the television or the radio without hearing about record high gas prices, and yet the CFTC has not yet been able to implement Congressionally-mandated position limits to put the brakes on excessive speculation in oil and other commodity markets. Meanwhile, trade associations representing Wall Street interests have sued us in
Source: Commodities Now